Tuesday, February 23, 2016

I removed the Twitter and Instagram apps from my phone because I found myself sitting on the toilet for like 20 minutes. That's okay to do with a good book but not with social media. I'm concerned about all that stuff- It's weird that we feel like we're accomplishing something as we scroll and scroll and scroll down an unlimited wall of information. I don't think I'll be avoiding them forever because I think they can be great networking tools (and I'm not sure Twitter will survive the month!), but for now I feel like cold, hard practice is a commodity too valuable to surrender to a frivolity like endless internet perusal.

We may have found a way to complete school this fall. More on that when I know.

I just found out a local library is having an art contest. Maybe it would be fun to enter? I guess I'll go get started after I make this post! The deadline is the 29th, so I'd better get crackin'!

This first montage is sketchbook stuff. The pen was one of the last pages of that Moleskine sketchbook I've been jawin' about since early January. It held together pretty well. I'm still not sold on it, but my little sister bought me a nice hardcover one and I must say I'm liking it so far. It's bigger and hardbound and the paper fits perfectly into my scanner. I wouldn't say I'm a convert yet, but the paper is very nice to draw on. The blue pencil were from the busride home today. The first 5 or so pages in this new one are disastrous. I feel like I may be slumping somethin' fierce as far as that's concerned.

I doodled this next one out a bit before bedtime late last week. It was a nice decompression sketch and I thought it didn't turn out half bad. I didn't use reference, so I basically put shadows wherever I wanted. I need to work on that.

I lunch sketch from today. I did have a reference for the lights/shadows, but it wasn't very helpful. I was too lazy to find something that would have served me better.

Kaitlin is going on a business trip Thursday, I think this will be the longest we've been apart since we got married! Everyone knows when you're alone in your bedroom that's when all the monsters come for you.

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Hello! I'm here to post pictures I drew today. I really need to do some 3D but I'm moments away from finishing my sketchbook and I'm just trying to get rid of the last coupla pages!

I may try to continue adding visual interest to this first one, but I like how it looks right now! He's like a cyborg warrior guy. I used reference for this (my own arms and quadriceps). There's a picture of me at the bottom of this post, you can see for yourself.

I used reference for the guy on the right. His buff foldy arms were difficult otherwise.

I showed Kaitlin this guy as I was drawing him and she suggested I put him in an environment, a scene. So I did! Eheheheheh! I excel at being an obnoxious husband.

This is a picture Kaitlin took of me earlier this week when we were celebrating my birthday. We walked to the dollar theater to see The Good Dinosaur. I thought it was too sad for a birthday movie, but I like watching movies with my wife!

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Today I am 26 years old. It feels weird to type that. The title of this post has a 5000 in it because that's the goal I'm setting for myself. Years, you see. I figure I'll have gotten fairly good at art and played through all the games in my Steam library by then. Probably not all because some are not games I'd actually play, but I'd like to play a lot of 'em. Hopefully Kaitlin decides to live to be 5000 with me or I'll be lonely and sad. She is the best wife.

Here's some sketchbook stuff from the last couple days:

(I'm really pumped about the guy with the sword above his head in this next one. I think it's so freakin' cool! I want to do more on it)

I promised you an update on one of the pictures I posted last time. I'm terrified to work on the muscle knife guy (and I'm gonna be honest, I might not come back to it!), but here's an update on that ship (I love a chance to use the "Vehicular Mayhem tag):

I tried something a little different with this one and added a rusty texture I found on Google. I don't know who did it, so if that's your rust, let me know and I'll credit you!

Being 26 isn't that different from being 25. I wonder when I get older?

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Hey! I'm here posting again this week. I, uh, don't really have anything finished, but I'm planning on finishing at least one of these things. I'm posting to become accountable. I don't know if it will work, but it's worth a shot.

I've been super busy lately. I'm working on a couple projects with friends and I'm also trying to work on personal stuff, too. I should probably direct my energy into those particular assignments (and perhaps homework even before that) but I'm not!

Also, I went back through some posts and they're full of typos. I'll probably go through and fix those or something sometime in the future. Hmm.

Here's some sketchbook stuff from the last couple days. Really it was just from Thursday, I won't lie to you.

This guy started from a hideous sketch (which I can't seem to find, maybe I'll go dig through the billion emails in my trash, hold on. Ah. Found it.) I've included the sketch beneath. Anyway, last post I included that one guy's head? It just flowed out in like half an hour. I thought it would be simple so I just picked a sketch I was feeling good about and started going to town on it. This is what I have so far, but I'm hating it, honestly. I get so clunky and stiff and lose the magic when I try and polish stuff up. I think this might have potential but it's going to take some serious willpower to try and figure out how to be loose and fun and hip and cool and still polish this off. This really doesn't feel like me right now. I think the bit that exemplifies this the most is the elbow of his right arm (our left). In the original, it's more stylized and pointy and fun. I seem to have lost that. I tend to drift too far towards "Serious and realistic" when trying to finish. Gotta find a workflow that allows me to avoid that.

I thing I doodled out a couple nights ago. I want to add some grunge and damage and stuff before I call it done. Also, it doesn't appear to have any weapons on it currently, which many (i.e. me) would view as inappropriate.

This is a screenshot from something I've finally picked back up. Sheesh! Remember this post? This guy sat on my desktop for awhile before being filed away in the appropriate location on my hard drive. But I need a model for my rigging class so I thought I'd power through. This is the model after being ZRemeshed in Zbrush. I brought it into Maya because I was going to retopologize with the Quad Draw tool, but I may try something in Blender, instead. I think then I'll take that back into Zbrush and do a high detail pass and then I'll bake out a few maps or something. I think that's how it works, anyway. I've done parts of this process at different times using different tutorials, but I still feel like I'm a bit unclear on appropriate workflow. Also, before I remeshed this it was 1.6 million points and Maya had to think for like 15 seconds each time I clicked. It was really scary and I though it would crash and ruin my life (it didn't).

Okay, next time I post I have to have progress on at least one of these!

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Kaitlin and I make goals for the new year and I take them ridiculously seriously. I come up with a strict and insane plan for what I want and set a couple goals to do that. I can't do more than 3 or 4 simple goals because my minimalist mind is immediately overwhelmed and I roll and weep in a puddle of tears, but I try to make those few goals goodins.

The moment Steam told me that Dragon's Dogma was available for pre-purchase on PC back in November, I bought it and anxiously awaited mid-January for its release. Videogames and I have a tumultuous history and for the last few years I've been extremely cautious with them so I can focus on art and more important things, but it's a game I knew a lot about and was keenly interested in experiencing.

I made an exception and put "Play Dragon's Dogma" on my list of goals for 2016 so I wouldn't feel guilty for gluttonously gorging my brains out on it. Kaitlin sagely pointed out that such a goal probably wouldn't stretch me too much and might actually be counter-productive, but allowed me to leave it on my list.

Dragon's Dogma came out and I've played a bit too much since then.

I realized over the weekend that I had wasted some serious time on something pretty trivial. With technology there to support us in everything we do, it's fascinating that we insist on using it to be lazy blobs. I haven't finished the game and I'd really like to, so I'll allow myself to play for a couple hours on Saturday mornings while Kaitlin sleeps in, since taking a break every once in awhile is important. But that's all.

It's interesting to see how a few weeks without strenuous exercise of my art muscles makes me cranky and unhappy. The moral of the story? Do more art? I don't know.